(18) What I learned about going with the flow

I use a great phrase when life seems to prevent you doing what you want to do: Looking back on your life and you can see how the dots join up. Looking forward you just can’t see the dots yet.

It’s sometimes useful to remember that sometimes it is good let go of what it is you are trying to achieve and allow yourself to simply go with the flow.

Some considerable time back I was planning to be a teacher and I got accepted to The Institute of Education at London University. Trouble was, and I cannot now remember why, I wasn’t able to take the place that they offered me and asked if it could be deferred for a year. They said no they couldn’t leave it open for me and that I would have to re-apply the following year. I was so annoyed: I was risking a place in the University I wanted to study because I couldn’t take it that year,

After I turned down the place I had a year to fill before I could apply again and had no idea what I was going to do. Quite by chance I spotted a small ad asking for women, living in Islington (I was in Walthamstow at the time!), to study for a City & Guilds in jewellery design. I thought it looked interesting, applied and to my joy was accepted. There started a great experience where I spent a year studying silversmithing which I then followed with a summer spent working in a blacksmith forge. Extremely hard work, but amazing fun.

So, a year on I re-applied for my PGCE at the Institute and, with relief, I was accepted. If you’ve read my earlier blogs you will know I quickly realised that teaching wasn’t for me but I duly applied for a job when the interview experience part of the course came about. What is wonderfully strange is that the job I applied for, and got, was for a metalwork teacher, something I certainly would not have been qualified to apply for had I completed my PGCE the year earlier. I loved the teaching job at the school I was in and loved working for the lively Borough of Newham. After I left the school I went on to be an educational consultant for Newham, and still have many working, and social links there to this day.

OK so my life would have gone in another direction had I accepted the first offer of the teacher training place, or had not been accepted the second time I applied. But what I’m saying here is that the experiences that I had were ‘right’ for me, even though they were born out of the initial frustration of having to turn down my original teacher training place. Looking back I can see how the dots joined up. Looking forward I know the decisions that feel right today will also turn out fine in the future too.

(15) What I learned about working for free

Seriously, I’ve been doing it all my working life.

When I graduated in 1990 there was a gloomy recessional mood over the UK. The stock market was all over the place, interest rates sky high, unemployment: a disease that struck swathes of the population irrespective of experience or social position. In my, then, trade (architecture / building) the bottom was falling out so fast people would literally turn up on site to find The Marie Celeste: Tea still steaming in mugs, project abandoned due to bankruptcy.

I was a self employed architectural designer at the time. And it became the first of a few times in my life when I have ‘enjoyed’ a period of employment freedom. I figured if I was going to ride this recession out I should at least find something interesting to do. The experiences that followed left me with a simple formula that continues to influence my working life: Do what you feel like doing (you never know someone might pay you for it!).

Thus began my eclectic and thoroughly enjoyable working life to date. Apart from my few years teaching (something that largely requires a formal application process – though I know someone who’s even skirted around this issue) every other ‘job’ I’ve had, has occurred because I just went and did it. I’ve learnt that; if you’re not asking / expecting payment, people will let you try your hand at practically anything you fancy (yeah funny brain surgeon / pilot / formula one driver I hear you say – yes of course there are exceptions – but you get the point I’m trying to make yeah?). Anyway, I swear, sooner or later, people get so used to having you on the team, they decide to pay you!

It’s how I got to try my hand at a range of careers the main ones being: stage management, lighting design, blacksmithing, industrial research, creative workshops, organisational psychology and business marketing. Alongside those main areas there have been 101 other little projects that I have done, for free, that have paid off in one way or another. And I work for the joy of doing that work, giving freely so as to enjoy the experience. It’s just that the Universe has ways of paying you back.

Currently my favourite voluntary work is with my local Cancer Research shop. I have worked there for two years or so, as a regular and, more recently, helping out with special projects such as fashion shows or auctions. My ‘payment’ has come through increased links into the community (see blog ‘(12) What I learned about the importance of community’), the odd useful item turning up when you need it (see blog (6) What I learned about getting what I want). Nothing tangible money-wise there you say, except the contacts I have made by chatting to customers had directly led to several interesting projects. Experiencing all the many facets of the social aspect of working in a charity shop has, I’m sure, benefitted my understanding of people and their agendas.

And now, when I fancy entering a new field of employment, the first thing I think of is where could I go find someone to help out? Who could I shadow? Where would I get the maximum exposure and experience of that industry.

Fancy swapping your job? You should try it sometime . . .